Pivot

by L C Barlow

  "Raped," Cyrus whispered in my ear. He touched my shoulder with his hand.

  "Kill them."

  He told me their names, where they lived, what they looked like.

  "If you have time," he said as I turned to go, "shoot from the knees up. Otherwise, don't worry about it."

  "It's done," I said, already starting on my way.

  I had hunted these men, just as I was told. I followed them, felt them out, till my teeth ground down on cold air, and my nose was bloody, and my hands had turned to claws. I heaved myself at them through the woods, until finally, they stopped and sneered. With my soft hands I felt out the cuspate knife and thrust it through the air to pin it to the right man's heart - one of these rapists - but then he rose! He shot up through the branches, so that my knife passed beneath him and plunged deep into the tree. He rose like an actor on a pulley on a black stage. The bottom of his feet touched the topmost of the branches of the tree behind him, and I had thought, Dear God! I have been hunting a vampire!

  Before I could catch my breath, the other one's figure shot up like a rocket without noise or light, and my head swung like a hinge to the left. He hung there, suspended like a puppet held by an invisible hand, also at the outermost edge of the tree. I stood and wondered how I was to kill them, and I reached out just briefly like a child trying to catch candy from God's hand. I whispered "How?"

  As though in answer to my question, their heads ripped from their shoulders, and a splatter of warm liquid splashed the dirt and leaves before me. The heads plummeted to the ground and bounced like basket balls, and as they did, the arms jerked viciously off the torsos, and then the legs. There was a shower of body parts like a morgue had been lodged in the sky.

  If there had been a blind man there, he would have seen it just the same. It was such a night.

  I stepped amongst their liquids and organs only to collect my knife from the tree. The smell of thousands of pennies in sugar hit me, but it did not make me smile. I slid through the blood and returned to Cyrus as fast as I could.

  I did not wait for the appropriate meeting time, did not care for my Irish coffee. I returned to the hospital, got to Meredith's then-darkened room, and breathed. Cyrus was the only other one inside. He was sipping tea and reading a book in a chair beside Meredith's bed.

  Meredith was asleep, facing away, an IV dripping diamond drops in her veins. Cyrus's left hand was draped on the bed rail, until he saw me, and then it moved to his face, slid his reading glasses to the top of his head.

  "You look like a ghost," he said, concerned.

  I swallowed. "Something shocked me."

  "Something shocked you?" He closed the book in his lap and opened his palm out towards me.

  "I got there. And..."

  "And?"

  I leaned against the hospital room wall, reached out with my right hand, gripped the door and shut it quietly. "Cyrus," I began, "Do you ever get the feeling, sometimes, say, when you've just entered a room..." I looked into his grey eyes.

  "Yes?" He tilted his head forward.

  "That the Devil has just been there?"

  He exhaled quickly and briefly. He raised his head to look at me. "Sometimes, after we do our work, I'd like to think he has." That made me pause. "Did you see the Devil, Jack?"

  I racked my brain for words to respond. "This was just...," I said, picturing it, and laying it out in the air with my hands. "I followed them into the woods, and there was a clearing. They were... dismembered, Cyrus. Dismembered right before me. They shot up into the air and..." I looked up as though they were there in the room, pressed to the ceiling. I had said this loudly, as though it would amount to something, but I could not finish. "It was un-real. Not real. It wasn't fucking real."

  "But the job has been done?"

  "Yes, but I didn't do it."

  Cyrus never even blinked. He just looked at me with his head leaned forward as though waiting for more.

  "Did I?" I said, thinking to myself that it would make far more sense. "No, I didn't." I pictured their heads popping off again, the stretch of the neck's skin like it was warm, loose cheese.

  "Jack," Cyrus said. "Go home, Jack."

  I snapped away from the mental images that stormed me.

  "Drink something, something strong, or inhale something. Get the soul back in you. If you need money for it, I'll give you whatever you need."

  "No," I said. "I need to know."

  The corners of his mouth pulled back, and his lips pursed.

  "It's been ten years now, us working together, and there's likely to be at least ten more," he said. "You know what's going on here."

  As soon as the words leapt from his tongue, I pictured all the eyes in the world turning towards me. In the room, the pressure shifted.

  "Sometimes, Cyrus," I said carefully, "I really don't think I do."

  Cyrus lifted his hot tea and drank it down. The liquid was still steaming, twinkling with the heat, but he poured it into his mouth like it was air. He stared at me and finished soundlessly. "Do you remember, when you were young, the first time I showed you that red box in my office? The one that looks like a clarinet case, but had peeling velvet and required a key?"

  "Of course."

  "And you remember Mr. Thornton, hm? And that box?"

  "Cyrus, I remember everything with that box."

  "Do you?"

  "You lock them in with it."

  "And?"

  I didn't want to answer him. "I remember."

  "Yes?"

  I sighed. "I do."

  "Well, Jack, sometimes I don't have to 'lock them in.' Sometimes, when I want things done, I don't necessarily need people like you."

  "People like me?" I repeated him, thinking.

  "You have to understand... it's not the most reliable of methods. I'm never sure what will 'pop out' so to speak, but I do still have that red box, and I do open it from time to time when need be. Whether it is entirely responsible for this or other things, I can't say. All I know is that I opened it this time around, and simultaneously it seems you were... unnecessary in doing what needed to be done. Just like when I left that box in the room with Mr. Thornton. And before that with Mr. Johnson. Before that, Mr. Shriver. The same. The same. Always the same."

  "Where did you get it? Where does a person get a box like that?"

  Cyrus said nothing. He smiled and clasped his hands together. "You might as well ask where Roland came from. Or where I did," he finally said, close to a whisper. "My advice to you on both counts is to remain curious. Keep your desire to know, and don't know. I can't save you from everything.

  "Go home. Shoot up. Sleep. And, whatever you do, leave it alone. Sometimes, when you stare too long into the void, it begins to stare back at you."

  He picked his book back up and opened it. "Trust me Jack," he said. "Days like this... heroin is surprisingly heroic."

  I did as he asked.

  * * *

  The next week, though, I was sent to kill a debtor. He owed Cyrus thousands, and he had not paid for years. It had come to a point where I was needed.

  He was a small man. An easy kill, I had thought to myself.

  On a Wednesday evening, after completing my homework, I retrieved my guns and knife and left. He was holed up in his daughter's perfumery - and I came to him in the ebon amongst the glimmering liquids to right the wrong.

  A thousand little vials of perfume sat twinkling beneath the store's lights on golden wooden shelves. A thousand reasons he gave Cyrus for not having the money. And now, of course, Cyrus knew there was no money.

  I stepped towards the shop and stood before its wood-framed glass door as the lights inside flickered briefly. They cast their glow upon me. There were vials, test-tubes, paper, coffee beans. The light was caught in little flecks of gold in the wood of the store, so that different parts of the store sparked my interest as they flared, even with the barest movement of my head. It did not seem like a perfume shop, but I could not decide in such a short time what
it was.

  I took a deep breath. I watched the man at the back of the store come forward and suddenly notice me, look me square in the eye. He slowed his pace and cocked his head. He was a short man, balding, with a dark beard and glasses. He had the nicest suit. It was so very... nineteenth century. I thought I saw the chain of a pocket watch, but there was none.

  I went up to the door and tried the knob. It was still locked. I looked in again, and the man just stood there. A myriad of things seemed to pass between us that could never be put into words, but he knew somehow.

  I pulled out the Five-Seven and shot the window of the door. I kicked in the parts that did not break, and stepped into the shop with a snap and crunch. The man dived to my left, tucked himself behind the counter, and I nearly slid in the broken shards as I took my first step.

  I lunged toward the counter and slapped my left hand on its slick wood top, firming my body and pushing with all my strength so that, with a jump, I got my legs on the counter, and then stood up, towering over him, my black coat swinging about me and nearly blocking my view. He looked up at me, like a mouse cornered, and I lifted the gun to shoot him, but it jammed! The fucker! And he, grabbing an eight gauge directly under the counter, swung the muzzle up. I ducked, leaping off of the counter and waited for a boom! But there was no boom. There was no sound at all.

  That was when the perfume began to fall. They hit slowly, first, one at a time and randomly, like flecks of a beginning snow. I watched them like one would a ghost. Then, it began to pour. Whole shelves broke apart and glass flailed through the air, crashing like bombs. In a few short moments, every bottle was broken, looking like piles of hard candy in rum and there was a mist in the air that burned my lungs like noxious gas. I held a sleeve to my face as I carefully stepped round the counter, my .38 now in hand, but when I saw his body, his throat was cut from ear to ear like a nauseous smile. For the first time I didn't smell the blood.

  I nearly stormed to Cyrus's home, nearly pinned him in his office, but an overwhelming sense of "Fuck it all," took me, and so I waited in the car until the appointed time, and then drove to the diner.

  Cyrus was already sitting in the booth.

  That night his shirt was cobalt. He had an emerald ring on his left hand in the place of his wedding ring. This did not give me pause. I barely wondered at it.

  "Well, just how Irish should your coffee be tonight?" he asked as I sat down. He smirked.

  "You can have mine," I replied.

  "You know I always prefer it virgin."

  "What? You add your own whiskey."

  "Yes, well, my whiskey is so smooth, it's still virgin."

  "Whatever," I said. "I didn't do the job."

  "Excuse me?" Cyrus asked, and his voice had an edge.

  "Your box is getting good. What can I say? Maybe it's time for me to retire." I leaned back in the seat and propped my feet up on his booth beside him. I crossed my hands over my stomach like in prayer.

  "What happened?"

  "His throat slit itself."

  "Are you certain of this?"

  "Of course. I've never been more certain of anything else. And I'd just like you to know that, as fantastic as these experiences are becoming, they do frighten me. I can stomach things, Cyrus. But this... it's something else. It really does feel different. When you're near, it's like there's something pressed right up against your neck, and..."

  "Jack, what you're telling me is impossible."

  I paused, mid-sentence, and took a moment to catch up to his verdict. He looked at me as though we were in a business meeting gone horribly wrong. "I don't understand. What's impossible?"

  "I didn't open the box. It wasn't necessary that Jim's death be particularly... fantastic. What you're saying..." he shrugged and flipped his hands in the air, "can't be true. I didn't open the box because he simply wasn't worth it."

  A cheery voice popped up beside us. "Well, good to see you two again. What can I get for you this evening?" It was red-haired Maria.

  "Jack?"

  "The turkey migas and a coffee," I said, never taking my eyes from Cyrus.

  Cyrus turned and smiled affably to Maria. "And an Irish coffee. And, if you can, double the whiskey."

  "Always do," said Maria, and she smiled at both of us and left.

  "What the fuck do you mean you didn't open the box?" I asked, almost all composure gone.

  Cyrus didn't answer me. "How's your sister?" he asked, pleasantly.

  I sighed. "You don't give a fuck about her."

  "But you do, right?" He shifted his head. The way he held himself, I knew there was no getting past answering this. "And I care about you, Jack," he added.

  "She's fine. But this box..."

  "And your Mother?"

  I didn't look him in the eye. As frightening as Cyrus could be, he was making me angry. My Mother was a sore subject, and he knew this. "The usual. Why?"

  "Still bringing strange men home? Still doped out of her mind?"

  "Yes. Yes. What does it matter? I get doped out of my mind."

  "You don't really believe that it doesn't matter."

  "And you don't really give a shit." I turned out my hands, questioning.

  "Are you stressed?"

  "No." I answered this immediately.

  "Fearful?"

  "Only of you. And whatever is taking my kills from me."

  Maria was then beside us with a tray in her left hand. "A bottomless coffee and an extremely Irish coffee." She set both the glasses down on the table.

  "Thank you, Maria," Cyrus said, "you are so nice."

  Maria's plump cheeks burned rosy. "It's easy to be nice to nice people." She touched Cyrus's right shoulder, and she left. I watched her hips sway until she disappeared into the kitchen.

  Cyrus switched our coffees. The cups were unintelligible.

  "Your Mother's a whore," Cyrus said to me.

  "We've been over this."

  "And she brings home men who threaten the... well-being of your sister. Why do you let her live?" he asked me.

  I looked at him, not knowing what to say. All I could think was, Cyrus, you threaten the well-being of my sister.

  He continued, his gray hair gleaming in the light, "You've killed perhaps twenty people now... that I know about. In almost every way possible. Would it be difficult to do? No. Would you miss her? No. Would your sister be worse for it? No. So what holds you back?"

  "I..." I paused. "I don't know."

  "Would you like me to have her killed for you?" he asked.

  I shook my head.

  "Why?"

  I sighed, grabbed my coffee, but before I could lift it, Cyrus put his hand on mine until I let the coffee go.

  "It's inexplicable, isn't it?" he asked me. "There can be something so dangerous to you, but you let it continue on because... you just don't know why."

  "Cyrus," and I said my words so carefully now, trying with all my might to be heard. "I don't think your box has to be opened anymore to work. And when it kills my victims before I can get to them, there's no mistaking that. It's threatening me."

  Cyrus leaned forward. "Jack, remember who you are talking to. I am not trying to convince you to kill your Mother. I am simply trying to open your eyes to the fact that, if what you say is true - that your intended victims are dying before you can reach them - whether the box is opened or no, shouldn't your first question be not, 'How do I end this?' or 'What is causing this?' But rather, 'How do I use this? Who do I need to kill that I don't really want to kill?' And shouldn't the first answer to this be quite obvious?"

  I sat there stone-cold speechless.

  "Drink your coffee," he said.

  I closed my dropped jaw, and I drank my coffee. Eventually, I said, "I think you underestimate the danger to me here."

  "I think you underestimate the power you now have."

  "It's not mine."

  "It's linked to you. I would call that quite lucky."

  "Is that what you are? Just lucky?"
/>
  He smirked. "Don't fuck with me." And then, "What is it exactly that you would have me do?"

  I picked up my fork thoughtfully. "If you have to... Burn the box. Destroy it."

  He immediately laughed. "That will never happen. It can't burn." Then, he said sarcastically, "Besides, it's like a Mother to me."

  I rolled my eyes. "Then what am I supposed to do?"

  "See where this goes."

  "No."

  "Jack, you don't have a choice. It's what I decide. Like everything else."

  I gritted my teeth hard.

  "I guess," I replied, "if I were to do what you said... that is, kill someone I need to kill but don't particularly want to kill... it would be my Father."

  "Really?"

  "Fuck if I know where he is, of course. Never even met him, if my Mother even knows which of the bastards she fucked is mine. It's one thing to be a failure of a parent. It's another to forgo being a parent at all. No... no, hell with it. I'd rather kill him myself. That's one I wouldn't want taken from me."

  Cyrus smiled and cleared his throat. "You do realize... if it were not for your Father abandoning you, there would be no me and you."

  My fantasizing was smothered by his statement. "Yes."

  "So maybe you owe him more than you want to admit."

  "I can owe him and kill him."

  Cyrus dipped his head slowly as though bowing before a King. Then we just stared at one another for a long while.

  "I'm frightened, Cyrus, and I am not used to that."

  "There's nothing wrong with a little fear now and then. It comes with age. Intelligence."

  "Do you fear?"

  Cyrus's mouth popped open, but a few seconds came and went before he spoke. "You'll eat your food. Then we'll go take a look at Jim's corpse."

  "Why?"

  "Well, what if you have gone absolutely insane? And Jim was never dead to begin with? And you only think his throat slit itself?"

  "I haven't gone insane."

  "That is exactly what an insane person would say."

  I chuckled. "You didn't check on Meredith's rapists."